


(please) don't say you love me

by callunavulgari



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Endgame, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/M, Inspired by Music, M/M, Songfic, Sterek Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t say you love me,” Derek says, unblinkingly, knuckles dragging gently down Stiles’ thigh. There’s early morning sunshine slanting in through the windows and Stiles has never been naked with another person before.</p><p>Stiles blinks at him, cocks his head, and shrugs. “Wasn’t planning on it, dude.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	(please) don't say you love me

**Author's Note:**

> So, there's this Sterek week thing, right? Well, I wasn't gonna do it because I've got enough on my plate right now, but uh, then I found Gabrielle Aplin's "[Please Don't Say You Love Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxNYvk_0Onw)" and decided that hey, first day of Sterek week has to do with song lyrics, right? So this happened. I'm trying out a new, or rather, a very old style, where I decide that I want to be weird and artsy. Lyrics are at the bottom. The full lyrics, because I'm weird about song fics and if it doesn't sum up the entire song, I feel like I'm doing it wrong.

They begin in the summer.  
  
Pause.  
  
End in the fall.  
  
Pause.  
  
Pause.  
  
Start again in the winter.  
  
Pause.  
  
And end in the spring.  
  
Pause.  
  
 _Pause_.  
  
[Restart?]  
  
.  
  
“Don’t say you love me,” Derek says, unblinkingly, knuckles dragging gently down Stiles’ thigh. There’s early morning sunshine slanting in through the windows and Stiles has never been naked with another person before.  
  
Stiles blinks at him, cocks his head, and shrugs. “Wasn’t planning on it, dude.”  
  
He leaves, because he is sixteen years old and has a curfew, not particularly because he wants to. To Derek, it probably won’t make a difference anyway.  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“Don’t say you love me,” Lydia warns him, her eyes narrowed. Stiles stops and stares at her for a long second, a book of spells in one hand and a juice box in the other.  
  
“I wasn’t going to,” he mutters at last, flopping onto the bed beside her. She smells like citrus and something flowery and her bed smells like detergent.  
  
Stiles had joked once that Derek always smelled of regret, but that wasn’t true. Derek smelled like Old Spice deodorant and clean sweat while his bed — the old mattress he had tucked away in a corner of the old Hale house, and then later, pushed up against a wall in the train station — used to smell of mothballs and ash.  
  
“I don’t love you,” he tries to say, testing, and isn’t entirely surprised when it rings true.  
  
“Good,” Lydia snorts, as if nothing is wrong. As if this isn't a revelation. “We’d be terrible together.”  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“Don’t say you love me.”  
  
Stiles licks a wet line up Derek’s chest and doesn’t think of anything, not Erica and Boyd gone missing or his best friend abandoning him for a quest of self-betterment.  
  
“I won’t,” he whispers, and kisses the hollow dip just above Derek’s navel.  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“Don’t say you love me,” Stiles gasps when Heather pulls back from the kiss. Habit, he thinks, fingers clenching and unclenching, looking for Derek’s hip to dig his nails into. Heather laughs like he’s said something funny, high and thin, like birds or bells, and pecks him on the nose. Asks if he’s got a condom.  
  
He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t. The only person he’s ever fucked is a werewolf.  
  
“Wait right here,” he says, and shudders when his mind latches onto what once was an empty space, a Derek-shaped person wedged in tight against his heart.  
  
 _I don’t love you_ , he thinks viciously, and fights back a sob.  
  
When he gets back and Heather’s gone, he tries to tell himself that he’s not relieved.  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“Don’t say you love me.”  
  
Stiles flings his head back against the pillows, grinds back onto Derek’s fingers, and gasps, his heart skipping a beat when Derek looks at him. “Never. Now _touch me_.”  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“Don’t say you love me,” Derek murmurs, half-asleep and aching all over. There are blood on his sheets and the body next to him doesn't smell right.  
  
“What?” Jennifer replies, head lifting from the pillow, brow crinkling with confusion.  
  
“Nothing,” he lies. “It’s nothing."  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“Don’t say you love me,” Malia says, and Stiles blinks at her, eyes wide, hands hesitating a scant few inches above her skin. He thinks of those words on another pair of lips.  
  
“Don’t look at me like that,” she tells him, and pulls off her shirt, hand darting out to trace the red forks of lightning zig-zagging down his back. He arches into her touch, because he can, because it’s good, and because if the world is falling down around him, why not make a mistake?  
  
“I don’t love you,” she gasps later, when he’s inside her. “And you don’t love me.”  
  
“Mutually assured destruction,” he pants, half-laughing, mouth pressed to the knobs of her spine.  
  
She laughs at him. “Morbid. Who taught you to think of love like that?”  
  
Stiles’ hips stutter and falter, shuts his eyes on the memory of clean stubble and the smell of Derek Hale on his sheets.  
  
“No one,” he lies.  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“What is it that you kids just _love_ to say to each other during moments like this?” the monster wearing Stiles’ face purrs down at him, fingers tap tap tapping along Derek’s dick, holding him in place with an easy hand looped around his neck.  
  
“Fuck you,” Derek growls and the monster tuts.  
  
“No, no, that’s not it,” it croons, leaning in to lap at the head of his cock. Sense memory makes Derek want to curl his fingers into that hair, but the hand around his neck is sending the message loud and clear, that this isn’t the Stiles he wants.  
  
“Oh, _I_ know,” it whispers when it’s sliding down onto his dick, easy as you please. It leans in, breath hot on Derek’s ear, and breathes, “ _Don’t say you love me_.”  
  
The creature laughs, moans, and rocks back onto Derek’s cock. “Do you want to know a secret, little wolf? You’re liars, the both of you. That’s okay, though, because it works out quite well on my end. The two of you are quite the buffet. All that despair... does a body good.”  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“You don’t need to say it every time, you know,” Malia mutters into his ear, wrapped around his back. He just got her back, but it feels just as empty as it did before he lost her to secrets and lies. “This isn’t your mutually assured destruction bullshit, this is us. You can love me if you want.”  
  
 _Us_ , Stiles thinks. It’s the wrong ‘us.’  
  
There is no us.

No Malia and Stiles.  
  
No Derek and Stiles.  
  
No us.  
  
 _Don’t say you love me._  
  
He’s about to lose her again, to a different set of secrets and lies.  
  
“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he whispers, and thinks, tentatively, _I do love someone_ , _but it isn't you_.  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“Don’t say you love me,” Braeden tells him as she’s climbing into his lap. Derek starts and stares, eyes wide. When he touches her, his heart isn’t in it.  
  
 _You’re liars, the both of you_ , the creature with Stiles' face had told him. He hadn’t listened then, because it was a liar enough for the entire world. He should have though, just that one time.  
  
 _I love him_ , he thinks, quiet and awed in the darkness afterwards. _I love him and I can’t take it back_.  
  
.  
  
“Please don’t say you love me,” Stiles sobs, eyes wide and unseeing. He gasps and gasps, sucks in great mouthfuls of air that just won’t stay put. The taste of copper is thick on his tongue, overpowering the salt of his furious tears. “Not now— not when I might not say it back.”  
  
“No,” Derek mutters, sounding absolutely shattered, fingers trembling where they're pressed against Stiles' cheek. “No, no, no, no— don’t—”  
  
Stiles looks at him and thinks desperately of how easily precious things can break.  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
Restart?  
  
.  
  
“I _do_ love you,” Derek tells him a week later, when Stiles is pale and small against the hospital sheets.  
  
Stiles blinks at him, slow and sweet, and thinks of spaces that are no longer empty and heavy words, of how hard feelings are to fake.  
  
“Yeah,” he whispers quietly, fingers twitching across the bed until they come to rest against Derek's. This is it. All in. Their own brand of mutually assured destruction. “Me too.”  
  
.  
  
Pause.  
  
(Re)start?

**Author's Note:**

> Summer comes, winter fades  
> Here we are just the same  
> Don't need pressure, don't need change  
> Let's not give the game away
> 
> There used to be an empty space  
> A photograph without a face  
> But with your presence, and your grace  
> Everything falls into place
> 
> Just please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back  
> Doesn't mean my heart stops skipping when you look at me like that  
> There's no need to worry when you see just where we're at  
> Just please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back
> 
> Heavy words are hard to take  
> Under pressure precious things can break  
> And how we feel is hard to fake  
> So let's not give the game away
> 
> Just please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back  
> Doesn't mean my heart stops skipping when you look at me like that  
> There's no need to worry when you see just where we're at  
> Just please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back
> 
> And fools rush in  
> And I've been the fool before  
> This time I'm gonna slow it down  
> 'Cause I think this could be more  
> The thing I'm looking for
> 
> Just please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back  
> Doesn't mean my heart stops skipping when you look at me like that  
> There's no need to worry when you see just where we're at  
> Just please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back
> 
> Please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back  
> Doesn't mean my heart stops skipping when you look at me like that  
> There's no need to worry when you see just where we're at  
> Just please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back
> 
> Just please don't say you love me  
> 'Cause I might not say it back 
> 
> And finally, come visit me on tumblr! My [writing blog](http://callunawrites.tumblr.com/) and [my primary one](http://callunavulgari.tumblr.com/).


End file.
